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Voice of the Free Press: Burlington schools must make choices

The apparent scrambling seen at Burlington School Board meetings that followed Town Meeting Day also reveals the district’s failure to have seriously considered the consequences of a failed budget vote.

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OPINION

Voice of the Free Press: Burlington schools must make choices

School Superintendent Jeanne Collins listens to school board members during a school board meeting at Burlington High School on March 11. The Burlington School District is considering layoffs after voters rejected the school budget on Town Meeting Day.
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EMILY McMANAMY/FREE PRESS
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The Town Meeting Day budget defeat is a clear sign that the Burlington School District needs a different budget approach.

The layoff warnings issued to 48 teachers for the coming year — to cover contract obligations under a worst-case-scenario — shows the lack of flexibility in the district spending plan.

The additional notices issued to nine staff members in the central office raises questions about the sustainability of the district’s administrative structure.

When asking Burlington residents to bear a nearly 10-percent increase in their school tax rate, the prudent thing would have been to have a contingency plan.

The board and schools Superintendent Jeanne Collins must reassess the course they have chosen to meet the district’s growing enrollment and changing needs.

Burlington voters — usually generous when it comes to school spending — on Town Meeting Day handed the district a seldom-seen defeat by voting down a proposed budget.

Now financial worries are so severe, the School Board chose to hold off providing rides to students left stranded by this week’s strike by Chittenden County Transportation Authority bus drivers.

The proposed non-teacher cuts include the director of diversity, equity and employee relations, as well as the equity director — district positions responsible for diversity issues.

Only two years ago, improving the district’s response to the needs of minority and new immigrant students was a top priority for Burlington schools. That priority appears to have far less weight now.

The apparent scrambling seen at School Board meetings that followed Town Meeting Day also reveals the district’s failure to have seriously considered the consequences of a failed budget vote.

Putting forward cuts to programs and personnel is little more than a knee-jerk reaction to a failed spending plan.

The budget defeat is an opportunity to look hard at the underlying causes driving up school spending and question assumptions about what Burlington is trying to achieve.

The budget defeat says voters are unwilling to write a blank check for the schools to pursue the latest and greatest in every area. The district must find a way to manage its resources rather than go back to the tax till to answer every shortfall or need.

That means the schools will have to continue to hone their focus on what matters most within the bounds of what the city can afford.

Burlington schools will have to recognize the limits of what a small school district in a small city can do.

Join the conversation. Comment online at BurlingtonFreePress.com or send a letter to the editor to letters@freepressmedia.com. Contact Aki Soga at asoga@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @asoga.